Should the Obamacare Fee on Health Insurance Providers be Repealed? (H.R. 246)

What is H.R. 246?

(Updated October 5, 2018)

This bill would repeal the annual fee on health insurance providers that was imposed by the Affordable Care Act. The fee is based on the number of premiums written, and was scheduled to take effect in 2017 but Congress delayed it until 2018 in 2015’s end-of-year omnibus appropriations bill.

It’s worth noting that this legislation is exactly one sentence long, its entire text reads: “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is amended by striking section 9010.”

Argument in favor

The fee on health insurance providers ultimately gets passed onto consumers in the form of higher premiums, so repealing this fee will help people save money on health insurance.

Argument opposed

This fee on health insurance providers brings in revenue that’s needed to help pay for subsidies that go to low-income enrollees who may not otherwise be able to afford insurance.

Impact

People enrolled in health insurance plans; and health insurance providers.

Cost of H.R. 246

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: The annual fee on health insurance providers was expected to bring in $13.9 billion in revenue that would go to paying for subsidies received by low-income enrollees.

This legislation has the support of 119 bipartisan cosponsors in the House — including 115 Republicans and four Democrats.

Media:

• Modern Healthcare (Context)
  
• IRS (Context)